The Great Wall is not a rubber band

The Great Wall of China is the oldest existing fortress and is listed as World Heritage by the UNESCO. The original length of the Great Wall was about 6,300 km!
But the length of Great Wall, which is fixed, has increased by more than three times during the past four years. The length of Great Wall that China has recently announced is 21,191km!
The Great Wall is not a rubber band, but how can the length extend so much?
The extension of the length of the Great Wall is a trick to emphasize that various ethic groups in Chinese territory are a single historical unit. It is also a trick to argue that Koguryo and Balhae, which are Korean historical countries, belong to their territory.
China doesn't hesitate to distort history for their own interests...
Does China give up becoming a global leader country as G2 nation and decide to become criticized hegemony?

Late summer 1995, Badaling, China, just outside the entrance to the Great Wall. I said my goodbyes to a perpetually bewildered-looking American tourist I had helped make his way this far. I stumbled upon him in downtown Beijing trying to purchase a train ticket from a very confused old man at a newspaper kiosk and felt obligated to help out a fellow American in such obvious need of guidance. I felt a little guilty about sending him on his way (he may have wandered into Mongolia for all I know, searching for a newspaper kiosk where he could buy a plane ticket back to Wisconsin) but I had my own mission to complete.

After running the gauntlet of souvenir shops and snack booths and procuring an entrance ticket, I shouldered my backpack and started up the wall. Getting there just as the historic site opened for the day made my task a little easier but I still had to navigate a sizeable crowd as I hiked westward along the ancient stones. The Great Wall is one of those non-negotiable sites for visitors to China. Mao once said you are not a real man until you've climbed the Great Wall. Well I don't know about that, but you are not a real tourist until you've been there at least once. It is certainly worth the effort. The size, scope and weight of history are truly awe-inspiring. As are the crowds during the busiest times of the day.

I walked and walked, as the crowds around me swelled and ebbed throughout the day. The impressive, 'photo-op' parts of the wall have been renovated relatively recently, but if you hike along far enough you will come to the crumbly ruins of the older segments of the ancient fortification. This is what I was most interested in seeing, and where I would spend the rest of the day.

Some time late in the day, security personnel swept the busy parts of the wall, making sure everyone had gone home before locking down the points of entry for the evening. This was the most perilous point for my plan. Hiding among the remains of an older part of the wall, at one point I could hear footsteps coming and going and knew I was that close to being found out and removed. About an hour after the last signs of people had faded I dared to come out and look around. As I'd hoped, there wasn't a soul in sight. This is what I'd been dreaming about for years.

Evening had come but there was a bright full moon and I could see 'my' wall clearly for miles. I walked a long way, taking in the rich isolation of the experience as fully as I could. After some hours, I retreated to one of the ancient guard towers that rise from the wall every half mile or so, and set up my camp for the night. In my backpack I had two thick blankets, four bottles of Qingdao, a packet of horrible preserved saugages that were in those days sold at every train station in the country, and a flask of baijiu. I picked out a corner sheltered from the wind, had a quick 'dinner,' and slept until the alarm on my watch announced the midnight hour. A light rain was falling, but I wasn't about to be deterred. Climbing to the highest point on the wall that I could get to, I spent the next hour or so practicing the taiqichuan I had been learning in Xi'an for the last two years. The fact that I wasn't very good at it didn't stop me from feeling pretty impressed with myself.

Once I was satisfied with the fulfillment of this long-standing dream, I retired to the guard tower where I finished off my provisions before grabbing a few more hours of sleep. In the morning, it was remarkably easy to blend in with the early crowds and slip out with no one the wiser. A few hours later I was back in Beijing and preparing to hunt down the next adventure.

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